


We escalate

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [8]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hell's Kitchen Cronicles, Kinda, Oneshot, edourado, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:23:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One elevator. Fifty story tower. Karen and Frank.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We escalate

**Author's Note:**

> Because I live for Frank in a suit

If someone asked her, she would say no. “Of course not”. But she was a little bit excited. 

Karen had never been part of a secret operation before. She knew Matt had - you don’t have a secret identity without pulling stuff like that on the regular -, and Foggy was practically king of classified cases, with his new fancy job and all the important work he was doing.

Karen? Not even once. Everything she did, even if she did find some pretty interesting, important stuff, it was just plain snooping. 

This, on the other hand, was serious business. She was about to bust an international prostitution operation, all by herself. 

Well, no, not by herself. Frank Castle was going with her. 

How long has it been since she last felt like giggling? Probably during Frank’s trial, when everything started going to hell.

He wasn’t on trial now. He was, however, wearing a suit. Better than the one he wore when he took the stand and blew the whole case. She was wearing a long dress and her hair was all made up. They were waiting for an elevator to take them towards a party for people who liked to purchase young women for ridiculously high figures and take them out of the country. 

Karen was going to expose an international prostitution operation. Frank was going to help - she made him promise not to kill anyone. He had grunted his agreement, but said he couldn’t promise anything. 

Now here they stood. They arrived separately and met in the empty lobby, away from the rich party goers and their expensive everything, going up to find the secret meeting taking place, where millions were being spent on terrified ladies plucked from their families. 

It was not a moment for giggling. At all. But she wanted to, anyway, because Frank looked so good. The giggling was not because she was making fun of him. It was because he had looked her up and down when they met, assessed her dress, flashed that side smile of his at her, uttered an amused “Wow…” and moved towards where they needed to be. 

She had wanted to ask “what?”, to make him elaborate that smirk, to milk a compliment from him. She let it go, instead. Just curved her lips up a bit and looked at the elevator display.

When it arrived, they stepped in and turned around to face the door during the climb to the very top of the 50 stories tower. 

She should be nervous about finding armed security. Or anything that could ruin her “operation”, or put them in danger. But no. Karen was nervous about the man standing beside her. 

“You remember what I told you?” he asked when the elevator lifted from the ground level. 

“About what?”

“We run into trouble…”

“I run.”

“And if you can’t run?”

“I shoot. I know. But I won’t have to.”

“You wait for me to go back down, ok?” he looked at her, hands at his sides, clenching and releasing, and it was because he was getting ready for a fight, but she imagined it was for other reasons. Less violent ones, involving her. 

Taking a deep breath, she tried to control herself. Bit on her lip to try and push that silly giggling impulse away. 

“You nervous?”

Looking at him, she saw him staring at her. His face was not covered in bruises as it usually was. He was wearing a tie this time and damn. Damn, he looked incredible. 

“A little bit.”

Karen felt a shiver run down her spine when he ran his eyes from hers, down her face and the length of her body, coming back and turn his face forward again, setting his jaw and taking a deep breath, wearing that smirking he sometimes flashed her way.

“Ok, what is it?”she asked, needing something from him. 

“Nothing.”

“Frank.”

He looked at her again, this time allowing himself a smile and a half shrug, licking his lower lip and biting on it after. 

“I was getting used to the skirts. And then you show up wearing that.”

He pointed at her dress, somewhat awkwardly. 

She couldn’t keep the smile in, so she raised her brows, to at least try and make it look like she wasn’t affected by that. 

“You wanted me to show up at a gala in a pencil skirt?”

“Not at all.”

This is just so inappropriate. Why was he flirting with her in the elevator taking them towards international women smugglers? Why was she flirting back?

“You don’t look so bad yourself” she said, resisting the urge to lift her hand to her hair, or look at her shoes.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Raising her eyes, Karen found him staring. Really staring. No space for doubting was he meant, what he wanted. 

The elevator dinged and slowed down. Taking a breath to concentrate on what she had to do, take her mind from Frank and his eyes and his suit, Karen prepared herself.

“You ready?” he asked, and she nodded. 

The doors opened and they looked at the empty hall in front of them. Karen knew she had to go right, towards the surveillance room dedicated to monitor the women and the room where they would be displayed, looked at and bought. Hopefully, the tapes would provide them with enough proof for the authorities to make their arrests and Karen to write that story that would, most definitely, end up in a raise. 

It was all very quick. When she opened the right door, Frank walked in first and proceeded to knock the three men out. In less than a minute, he was calling her in and she was walking to the computers, looking for recordings. 

She breathed a little harder when she found a file, organized, with names and dates. Opening one up, she watched a few seconds of a woman standing in bikini and high heels, turning around so a foreign looking man could inspect her. 

“This is it. I got it.”

“Great. Hurry up”, Frank said, from the door.

It took a minute or two for the files - three months worth of them - to transfer to her flashdrive. While the percentage of the bar raised in a steady pace, Frank came to stand beside her and look at the screen that showed the live feed of the display. 

There they were. Men talking, drinking laughing of their own jokes, sitting on plush chairs and couches, inspecting as women - young, scared - walked and turned and paraded themselves. One of them nodded to a woman holding an iPad, and she made a note. The girl he had just bought was escorted away and back, towards a room outside the range of the cameras. 

Karen was disgusted, horrified. But at least she was doing something to put an end to this. By her side, Frank standing very still, and she knew what he was thinking.

It wasn’t what they had agreed, but she couldn’t ask him to walk away. She could be one of those women.

When he looked at her, she took a deep breath, and he set her jaw, telling her without words. 

“Just- Don’t take too long. And!” she added, in a whisper, when he walked away. “Try not to kill anyone. Please.”

He sustained her look for a second and then looked outside. 

“You stay here.”

He closed the door after him and she watched, through the monitors, while he made his way down the hall. 

She had no sound, but she saw as he walked in, quietly. At first, the “gentlemen” payed him no attention, thinking he was just another rich buyer (he did look like it. All mean and buff and dangerous in that suit that was just perfect). First, he took down the few security guards, the ones more likely to be packing. And Karen saw, for a terrifying second, as one of them pulled a gun and pointed it at him. Frank, holding the last security guard by his neck, kicked the gun away. After the guards were down, he quickly, easily, dealt with the buyers. Then, he took the iPad from the woman presenting the enslaved girls and tied her hands behind her back, with his tie. 

With her breath stuck on her throat, hands shaking slightly, she watched as he fished a phone from one of the men and dialed what she assumed was 911. Then, he vanished from frame, coming back with 10, maybe 15 women, dressed in almost nothing. Taking his jacket off, he gave it to one of them, along with instructions, and Karen knew, when he gave the gun that had been aimed at him a few moments ago to one of them, what he said: “If someone that’s not a cop walk in, shoot. If one of them wake up, shoot.”

And then he was off. She still saw the women picking phones and guns and jackets to cover themselves before Frank opened the door. 

“Come on, let’s go.”

Karen rushed outside, towards the elevator. When that single ding announced it’s arrival, Frank pulled her to the left and into a dark corner, where her legs bumped on a fire extinguisher. 

The men exiting the elevator would not have seen them, but when Frank went forward and took down one, then two, then three she understood he was thinking about the victims. He was still punching the third man when the fourth and last came up behind him. 

Karen picked the fire extinguisher up. 

“Hey!” 

He was tall, so she couldn’t hit him in the face, not at first. So she pushed the butt of the extinguisher on his chest as soon as he turned around, landing it on his nose after he was down, effectively knocking him out, right when Frank landed the last punch on the thug he had been fighting.

“Atta girl”, he said to her, breathing hard. “Come on, come on.”

She dropped her heavy weapon, and they walked into the elevator and Karen leaned against the wall, panting. Frank pushed the button to close the door repeatedly. There was blood on his hand, from the noses he had broken. Looking at his face, she saw a few drops of red. Thankfully, not his. 

Trying to calm her breathing, she raised her hand to wipe it clean.

“You got blood on you.”

He turned his face to look at her while she tried to remove the blood from his face. She was comparing the times she had seen bloodied and bruised and the times she had seen him “clean” when he sighed. 

“Fuck, you’re wearing the shit out of that dress.”

Meeting his eyes, Karen saw his face go to that expression that made her nervous. That good kind of nervous, that made the butterflies inside go crazy. 

With a few speck of red still across his face and her hand still feeling the weight of that fire extinguisher, Frank took a step forward and grabbed her face with both hands, crashing his mouth on hers, slipping his tongue inside, pressing her against the opposite wall, bending his knees slightly to mold his body to hers and Karen felt everything. 

Her hands raised to his chest and she took it all. Took his tongue, demanding and rough, his teeth on her lip, one of his hands on her hip while the other pressed on the wall by her head, sliding and landing on her neck to pull her closer. 

When she anchored her hands on his neck, opening her mouth, hungry, so hungry for his kisses, he stepped back, bringing her with him, his back touching the wall now. Frank gave her a chance to breathe in and out when he raised her chin and ran his tongue down her neck, pulling her to him by her hip, thrusting his forward, making her see stars, his body awakening hers. 

She stole a glance to the display, reading “17” in red numbers, going back to his mouth when he requested it, raising his face and angling her head to his. 

Her head spinning, she arched her back towards him a bit, running hands down his neck, to the open collar of his shirt, pulling him to her and he got up and towered over her again, oh so dominant Frank Castle. 

Karen looked over to the display again. “6”.

“Ok, ok, listen”, she said, between lips and hands and tongues. 

“No, you listen”, he said, swallowing her whimpers, hands on her neck and back, pulling her so close, and she caved, just for a moment, she caved because he was making her feel so good, so good, so good.

The elevator slowed down and she pushed him away by his chest, taking a deep breath and a hand to her lips, glad she had not chosen a bright lipstick for the evening. 

Frank kept his eyes on her, adjusting his shirt and running a hand on his mouth and, to her, he never looked so dangerous. The doors slid open and he offered his arm. Karen placed her hand on the crook of his elbow and they walked out, ready to blend in until they reached the exit, intent on not attracting any looks to them. 

They needn’t worry: all the guests were looking at the team of police officers making their way through the tables. Frank’s call, reporting fifteen hostages about to be sold into international sex trade, along with the address, had been effective. 

He was the Punisher though. Still wanted by the authorities, so he kept his head down and always walked behind people, pulling Karen along with him. 

When the kitchen door opened, three staff members coming out to see what was going on, he pulled her to the kitchen, through stainless steel counters and out the back door.

She thought he was going to push her against a brick wall and resume their exploration of each other. There would certainly not be complaints from her. But he crossed the street, pulled her through another, and another, until he reached the next block. Raising his hand, he hailed a cab. 

When it stopped, Frank opened the door for her, gently guiding her towards the car. 

“You go do what you have to do with those files.”

They looked at each other, the cab door between them. 

He set his jaw in that way she liked, reading her expression. 

“I’ll be right there”, he promised, his voice low and she bit her bottom lip to keep from smiling. “Go.”

Karen got in, he closed the door, and off she went.

.:.

When she heard the knock on her door, the videos were uploaded to her computer, to the Bulletin’s database and to an email to Detective Brett, which she was finishing writing.

Frank gave her three seconds after she opened the door. She looked at him, he looked back. Karen smiled, opening her mouth to speak, but giving up. 

The door closed behind him when he pushed it, after stepping in and walking into her raised arms.


End file.
